Wings of Retribution (Left)
by Pali
Summary: A SO1 'fic about the events behind Marvel's quest for revenge.. Spoilers, if you don't know all about Marvel already. ^-^ This is my first 'fic, so be kind. :P Enjoy! (Part 1 of 2)


Wings of Retribution

By: Pali! ^-^

(Okay.. First off, lots of badly written spoilers if you've never taken Marvel to the Sylvalant

Ruins before. Second.. well, I hope you like this 'fic. It's the product of playing through SO1

and discovering how sad Eris' past was.. poor Joshua. The person he's looking for is right under

his nose.. Okay, getting off-track. This is part 1 of 2, detailing how Eris came to be Marvel.

If anyone likes this 'fic, I'll finish the second half, with the events leading up to the big conclusion

of Marvel's quest. Enjoy!)

It was like waking up from a dream.

No.. Not a dream, but rather a nightmare.

It all seemed so unreal.. Like fragments of a dream I could only partially remember.

And what I saw.. was a pawn. A young girl stained with the blood of her enemies,

and finding contentment in the massacre of others. All in the name of that bastard

Argaswy..

It couldn't have been me..

..But it was, wasn't it? My memories are my own.. and yet there's so much that I simply

cannot account for, cannot accept as being my own..

Forgive me, I'm getting ahead of myself. Perhaps.. I should start at the beginning.

---

We had been travelling for quite some time, my family and I. Travelling Featherfolk..

I imagine we must have been quite a surprising sight to those we passed by. Perhaps

that's why he noticed us.. noticed me.

Our path had taken us from Trop to the edge of the Parji Desert. Tatoroy was in sight

when it happened. It's hard to remember exactly what happened.. he was on us before

any of us could react, and by the time I had spun around, my father already lie prone on

the ground, a pool of red gathering from underneath his fallen body. By the time I cried out,

my mother had joined him, their blood mingling across the shifting sands. Joshua tried to stop

him, but he was unarmed. No match for the Shinkuu no Tate's blade.. He soon crumpled to the

ground as well, leaving only me. 

It's strange, in retrospect, how one reacts in this situation. I felt as though rooted to the ground, ironic considering I should have easily been able to fly away.. Nonetheless, I was helpless as he

approached. To my considerable surprise, he sheathed his blade, his expression contorted with that smile that would haunt me for the rest of my days.

"Don't be afraid, child.. You're more useful to me alive."

The last thing I saw was that chilling smile as he curled his fist to strike me.. and then blackness.

---

The gap between that and my next memory is disturbing, to say the least. It was like waking up,

only that rather then the warm confines of my bed, I found myself standing in the middle of a vast, harsh snowfield. Without knowing why, without caring for what reason.. I sobbed. Something was

terribly, terribly wrong.. I simply hadn't known what it was yet.

I wandered.. Oh Tria, how I wandered. Chilled to the bone, with only the soft linen of my dress to

shield me from the elements, I knew if I didn't find shelter I would surely die. Luckily, if you call anything in my current existence lucky, I stumbled across the gaping maw of a cave, carved deep

into the wall of the Sylva Mountains. I hastened to create a fire for myself, a simple casting of Fireball sufficing.. and I slept, for now that the shock had worn off, I realized I was quite thoroughly exhausted.

It was in sleep that I found what I couldn't awake. I saw myself from a distance, dressed much as I

was now.. and he was there next to me. He raised his hand, a gloved finger directing 'my' attention

to a stranger, no more then a boy really, huddled in the corner of the room. His gaze was wild and fearful, and I realized with a tinge of sympathy that his face and neck were badly bruised.

I saw 'myself' raise a hand in the young boy's direction.. and I watched in horror as 'my' lips moved

silently, wordlessly, chanting the spell I had used just moments before to light my fire. Flames swirled delicately around 'my' outstretched hand.. and I could only scream as the flames streaked

forth, striking the boy and lighting him ablaze in a huddled, quickly vaporizing mass.

I awoke still screaming.

---

I had fled in terror from the fire that was keeping me warm, so similar was it to the blaze that engulfed the boy in her dreams.. fled deep into the recesses of the cave, through corridors that

gradually became more and more similar. I didn't care that I was lost.. as long as I got as far away

from that horrid sight as I could.

I don't know how I found the chamber.. I believe now it was fate. It was a strange sight, a ceramic

plate wedged between the rocky walls of the cavern, and adorned with a shining emerald in its center. I found myself drawn to it, for reasons I still can't comprehend.. and I reached out to touch it.

It was with a certainly expected degree of surprise that the plate vanished, swirled into nothingness, and the emerald as well. Curiousity led me inside to this strange room, like a temple

cast in the strangest of places.. perhaps it was a temple. A shrine to the lost.. and I was not the only one to find comfort in its depths.

I shivered, realizing with some shock that the snow from above had found its way into this dark

recess of the Sylva Mountains, and much of the inner chamber was frozen in ice. I took stock of

the room, finding many strange objects attached to the walls. Many had strange sheets of.. glass,

was it?, and small parallel squares marked with various numbers below them. I experimented with them for some time, but to no avail. They seemed to be broken, whatever they were.

Exploring the room further, I began to explore for myself what other objects were frozen in the icy

region of the chamber. Fireball was efficient enough in melting the miniature glacier, although I still

felt a deep sense of wrongness in using it. Soon, most of the room was cleared out save for one cylinder of ice that simply refused to melt.

I would have left it alone, except the glimmer of something behind the snowed-over ice had caught my eye. Tearing a piece of my dress off, I began to wipe away the snow and the fog from the ice..

and for the third time today, I screamed.

For peering back at me from behind the layer was a woman, her eyes staring lifelessly into my own.

I recoiled, falling on my back at the shock of this sight, and for some time still I screamed. I had certainly expected to find more of those strange objects.. But a person? What.. was this?

When at last I calmed down, I found myself noticing something that hadn't been there before. Emanating now from the ice was an aura of power that surpassed anything I had seen in the past.

It was strange.. it was quite similar to heraldry, but everytime I focused on it, tried to find the nature

of it, it changed. Shifted into something new. It was an aura of magic, that much was certain.. but

like nothing I had ever seen before. As it changed, I could feel its.. her power growing. Not knowing what else to do, I fled from it.. outside the chamber, at least, to gather my thoughts without the sight of this strange, powerful woman unnerving me further. I huddled against the wall

of the cavern, and knowing not what to do, I sobbed. Out of terror, confusion, but most of all, pain.

This had, I smiled bitterly, been quite a day.

---

Tria knows how, but I finally fell asleep amongst fits of sobbing and bewildered confusion. Sadly,

sleep held no comfort for me at this point. Again, I saw myself following that bastard's every word.

And it always killing.. Ice Needle, Grave, Ray, all turned against whoever Argaswy saw fit. Men,

women, children.. he spared none.

No.. It was me.

..NO! I couldn't accept that. I was beginning to understand what had happened.. it wasn't my fault..

Wasn't it? He gave the orders. It was you that following through with them.

No.. I couldn't help it.. It wasn't really me..

But it was. YOU'RE THE ONE WHO KILLED THEM.

I awoke once more, unable to hold back my tears as I wrapped my wings tightly around myself for

comfort. It wasn't me..

No. It wasn't. It was Argaswy.. It was his fault! His fault..

I cried for hours, my sobs echoing through the empty corridors of the cavern. It was, I suspect,

some dark hour of the night when a sudden realization came to me. An epiphany, irrational as it

was, as to how to rectify this situation. A feeling of cold detachment settled upon me as I rose to

my feet, and turned to approach the chamber once more. 

Yes.. it was Argaswy's fault. And he'd pay. One way or another.

---

She was beautiful. I hadn't realized it before, too absorbed in terror at the time, just how pretty she

was. Violet hair, unheard of in any race she'd even seen, fell in layered waves across the sides of

her face. Even in these conditions, she was perfect.

She was also powerful, which was the important thing. It had occured to me that even if I mastered

every spell I had been taught, I was no match for the Shinkuu no Tate. But this woman.. her power

eclipsed my own several times over, and even Argaswy's, from what I could tell. She would be the

tool with which I righted these wrongs.. my wings of retribution. I smiled wistfully as I began to

chant, my voice seeming unfamiliar to me even as they escaped my lips. And slowly.. my voice was

not merely unfamilar, but no longer my own.

My smile was no longer expressed through pale, nearly frozen lips.. but full, ruby-tinted ones, as the spell was completed.

Goodbye.. Eris Jerand.


End file.
